WIT Press


Institutional Aspects Of Governance For Sustainable Development In Flanders

Price

Free (open access)

Volume

120

Pages

11

Page Range

163 - 173

Published

2009

Size

350 kb

Paper DOI

10.2495/SDP090161

Copyright

WIT Press

Author(s)

S. Spillemaeckers & K. Bachus

Abstract

Belgium is one of the first countries to integrate the concept of sustainable development in its constitution. One of the reasons for the growing political consciousness is the fact that Belgium, as a small and centrally located country, is following the international political scene closely. In addition, sustainable development is gaining importance on the European and international level. Even though the country is small, not all government levels are moving at the same pace or in the same way to integrated policymaking, taking into account all aspects of sustainable development. All political levels have their own idea about the manner of implementation. This paper will focus on the institutional aspects of the Flemish governance model. It describes and analyses how sustainability is currently integrated in the legal framework, in administration, in the political authorities and in the strategic policy framework. It gives an overview of positive evolutions and indicates the bottlenecks. Keywords: sustainable development, governance model, administration for sustainable development, holistic approach, inclusive governance, capacity building, legal framework, Flanders. 1 Introduction This paper will present some of the results of the project of the Flemish Policy research Centre for Sustainable Development on institutional aspects of governance for sustainable development in Flanders, financed by the Flemish

Keywords

sustainable development, governance model, administration for sustainable development, holistic approach, inclusive governance, capacity building, legal framework, Flanders.